Personal Blog

For Christmas, Tai bought me 4 Californian Meat Pen rabbits (three does and a buck) and built rabbit hutches from recycled materials. They live off fresh water, garden clippings and food from the local coop.

We use their waste for our compost pile. Additionally, we plan to use them for meat, or discover we don't have the hearts to be socially responsible meat eaters. Once we get the operation going, we will also be selling our adolescents and teaching others who are interested in rabbitry.

We bought our rabbits from a local breeder. We keep them in four separate cages. Tai built the hutches from some 2x4s, crates, screen, wire, sheet metal roofing, an old grill, nails and a staple gun. Our original cage had just two compartments: one for the does, one for the buck (you have to keep them separated). The door of first two cages is made out of an old grill. It makes it look like bunny jail, but it is much more effective than the screen doors on the two new cages. Underneath the cages, we wedged the sheet metal roofing so that it is a bit easier to gather the rabbit waste to add to our compost for the garden.

Once the rabbits became breeding age, we expanded the cages, one cage for each of the four original rabbits. In the female cages, we built nesting boxes out of wood. We give them tons of hay so that they can nest accordingly.

We recently started breeding the rabbits. Now the cages are filled with baby bunnies, bunny parents and pregnant bunnies. They have been a lot of fun to care for, but I do not look forward to having to say goodbye. It has been a fun learning experience and so far we have had a lot of success with rabbitry.